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Thursday, April 10, 2014

3 posts in 3 days! I'm so excited because we made a lot of progress on the living room this month. Well, I did most of the hard stuff right when we moved in but we finally got to order our new couches and big rug. The room is finished now (except for a few wires that need to be hidden in the wall). I love sitting in here. I'm so thankful for this space.

One of the first things I started doing right when we moved in was paint. The sooner I got that done the sooner I could start hanging things on walls and putting things where they went. We did have some painters come over to help for a few days which was so nice. They mostly worked on trim though. The whole house was freshly painted before being put on the market but they painted latex paint on top of enamel and once we got our furniture in it was chipped all to pieces. You could easily peel off a foot of paint at a time. Terrible. So we had to paint enamel over ALL of it. Downstairs they didn't paint all of the woodwork. Not sure why. The painters painted all of the downstairs windows and doors. I love the way it lightened everything up. Our moms came over one Sunday afternoon and helped us paint this room. It was the first one we did. We chose Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. We love this color. Such a subtle and soothing blue. It's in our bedroom as well.

I whitewashed the brick and spray painted the fireplace surround and tools (see blog post link above). The bookshelves look so different white. I also replaced the hardware on the doors.

We found a great deal on the couches at Ashley furniture. They're the Ballari linen sofa and loveseat. We got about $100 off of each one. I saw them for the first time on President's Day when they were having a 20% off sale. I bought them like 3 weeks later but told them that I was originally quoted the 20% off price on President's Day. Without hesitation they were totally cool with giving me that price again even though the promotion had expired. Always ask!!

I got the patterned pillows at TJ Maxx and the blue button and yellow ones at Home Goods (such a dangerous place when you have a new house).

The ivory shag rug I found on Amazon. It's a 9x12. It was a great price. I searched for months looking for a rug that size for less than $400. We definitely wanted to get it before our baby comes so we can play with him/her on the floor. The room is so much cozier now.

I got these curtains for Christmas. I love them. They're beige with embroidered white polka dots. They came from lightinthebox.com. Use a coupon code! I got to customize the hanging-style as well as the length. Pretty sure they're made to order. I'd definitely buy from there again. I spent weeks searching for the perfect window treatment for this room. I was originally looking for fabric to make my own. Somehow I came across these and they were just what I was looking for and they didn't break the budget at all. It would've been way more expensive to buy the fabric for 4 panels.

I needed a little chair for the desk in our bookshelves. I went shopping in my dad's garage per usual and I found a plethora of these wooden chairs. They were my aunt's but she so generously donated one to my cause. I polished the wood and replaced the fabric with ikat fabric from Premier Fabrics that coordinated with my curtains.

I was really intimidated at first by these bookshelves. I've never had bookshelves before. I was so drawn to them when we found this house but when it was time to decorate them I didn't know where to start. There were so many shelves. I stared at them for a few days not knowing what to do. I finally just started puttin and changin and they finally ended up how they are now. I had most of the components but I purchased some (mostly from Michaels, Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, and Ross) and I changed some of the things I already had. The bottom right shelf still has our cable wire coming out of it. Once we get all of that taken care of I can hang the things in it.

I got most of my books at Goodwill. They had a cool collection of old classics that weren't expensive at all. I really like how all of them are really different.

Here's an example of something I changed. This was gold, red and black. I was first going to get rid of it but then I decided to try and make it work first. I spray painted it and used sandpaper to rough it up.

I love this painting by Lisa Sulipeck. She gave it to us as a wedding gifts. Definitely one of my favorite things we received.

We got this entertainment center right when we got married. Matt was ready to get rid of my bulky TV and get a flat screen. I was behind on the times. My big TV was in an old wardrobe so we had to get a new piece of furniture. We found this online somewhere and Matt put it together. I don't like seeing through the glass. In our old house I had scrapbook paper behind it. I wanted to change things up this time so I put white burlap behind the glass to camouflage the equipment.

I make these signs and sell them. I had to redo ours to match the new house as well. They make great wedding and Christmas gifts ;)

This frame was black with a pure white mat. It was plastic and looked pretty cheap (probably because it was). I spray painted it and sanded the edges and rematted it with white burlap and cardboard-colored scrapbook paper.

In our old house we had a long hallway that I called my hallway-o-pictures. I had so many you couldn't even see the wall. I didn't want to go that crazy again but I wanted to have a wall-o-photos somewhere. The bar wall was the perfect place. I already had all of these frames. They were all so different. I spray painted them all white and sanded them. I also spray painted the mats off white of the picture frames that had them. They were off white before but they weren't the same shade and it was buggin me. Now they're uniform but still different and interesting. One thing that I saw on Pinterest that was SUPER helpful was a way to hang galleries. Cut out paper to the size of each frame, lay it out how you want it, then tape it on the wall. That way you can get everything perfectly centered without the hassel of making unnecessary holes in your walls. Wall collages are hard to hang. This made it so easy.

Here's a random picture of my dog because she's cute.

This room has undergone the most dramatic change. The entry way is a close second though.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

We got so many projects finished in the last week because of our newspaper interview. They took lots of pictures so we were forced to finish up some things which was awesome. We finally finished our entry and Matt's office!! Everything is coming together and it's really feeling like home.

Side-by-Side Comparison of the Entry Before & After:

Before:

After:

I'll start with the entry. That floor tho. It was the first thing I noticed when we walked in the house and it was the first thing to go. My dad came over I think the day we closed and started smashin. I wanted the mess of it out before we got our things in. We lived without an entry floor for probably a month and a half. These pics were taken a few weeks after we had moved in. They were just chiseling away at some remains before they put down the new floor.

My family lived in a house in Southwind when I was a kid and our kitchen floor was brick. I always thought it was so cool and it's the first idea I had when thinking about what I wanted to replace the marble with. I went all over Memphis looking for it. Most people thought I was crazy but I finally found what I was looking for at Robert F. Henry Tile Co on Summer Ave. I got their brick pavers in wine. Pavers are way thinner than regular brick so it was perfect for flooring. My awesome dad of course did a great job installing it. We love our new floor!

My dad also installed new trim and built us a new door frame. What would we do without him?

We painted the walls in the entry/upstairs hallway Wool Skein by Benjamin Moore. I really love it. It's a bright cheery neutral. It's so inviting. Perfect for an entry way, ehh! I painted the outside and inside of the front door Gaelic Gardens by Farrell Calhoun. My dad is going to change out the yellow leaded glass in the front door with different glass. We were originally getting a new door but he can basically do anything soooo.

We also painted all of the bare woodwork downstairs. All of the upstairs woodwork was painted white but they didn't do all of the downstairs for some reason. It really lightened the place up.

Here's something I bought about 3 years ago that has gone through it's share of changes and places. I bought this window at Sheffields (such a wonderful place). I added some brown and blue to the frame, taped pictures matted with scrapbook paper inside, then covered the back with fabric from Hobby Lobby!

For months I wanted to buy a new door handle for our front door since this one was so ugly and old and gross and didn't match the deadbolt. Those are so expensive! Like start at $100. I thought about it for a while then one night I had a dream that I spray painted them. I have very riveting dreams these days. But why hadn't I thought about that before! Such and easy, cheap solution! I already had some hammered spray paint that I used to paint our house numbers in January. I unscrewed the knobs a little and slipped some tape and paper around them and voila! I was so excited about how it turned out. It has been bugging me for forever (note I'm writing this paragraph in October and it was originally published in April). Spray paint works miracles. So if you have mismatched door hardware think spray paint before you drop a Benji to replace it. You'll be glad you did!

Moving upstairs, I started this little collection when we lived in our old house. Everytime we go somewhere I get a map and frame a picture of ourselves in that place matted with the map. So Pinterest of me, I know. I don't own that idea. I love it though! These is at the end of our upstairs hallway. We have our honeymoon in NYC, 1 year anniversary in San Francisco, my graduation trip in Disney World, a short trip to Washington DC, and Seattle & Alaska for our Babymoon. I got the iron piece at Hobby Lobby for a few bucks. I just had the top 4 frames for a while before we went on our last trip and I added the bottom 2. When I added them the whole thing looked really low and awkward. Instead of rehanging them all higher (such a pain to get them evenly spaced out) I just added the iron piece to even everything out! Worked like a charm.

Another thing my dad did was add french doors to the office from the entry. The room was originally meant I guess to be a sitting room or something similar. Since we already have a living room with couches, TV and a fireplace we didn't see the need in having another one. We wouldn't use it and we didn't want to spend money on furnishing it. It would've been a waste of space. It's right inside the front door to the right. We decided it'd be a perfect office. Matt definitely needs room for his desk, gadgets, and extensive musical instrument collection. It was convenient in that we wouldn't have to use up a bedroom for his office and there was plenty of space in there. I wanted him to have privacy however. I'm an obsessive neat freak and it would drive me crazy if he had a pile of papers on his desk or things laying around just because it's like the first thing you see when you walk in the front door. It's his office, though, and I want to give him the freedom to not have to have it perfectly put together all the time and me the luxury of not having to really look at it when it does get a bit unruly. He also practices a lot and it's hard for him to do that when the TV is on in the next room. And he needed to be able to listen to his music without it echoing throughout the whole house. All that to say, it needed doors.

I went shopping in my dad's massive garage and found 2 doors in the depths of woe. We did a little surgery on them but they ended up being perfect for the space and they were FREE! My dad closed in the large opening and installed them. I painted them and installed the door knobs. It made such a huge difference.

The office I painted Berkshire Beige by Benjamin Moore. I was originally painting like the whole house this color. I started with that room. I loved it in there but quickly realized that it wasn't right for the whole house. It was a little too dark and in some lights it had a dark greenish tint. It's so perfect for in there though. So glad that's where I started.

For Christmas I asked for like 8 guitar hangers. They're String Swing brand and on Amazon for $10 each. I love seeing all of his guitars hanging on the walls.

Our piano was actually given to my grandma by her dad in the 40's. It was her first piano. It was mine as a kid as well. I got a new one when I was a little older but I learned to play on this one first as well. When we moved into the house my grandma gave us an awesome gift. She had it rekeyed and restrung. A guy came and took our keys away for a few weeks and came back with brand new-looking ones. Those are the originals but he made new tops for them. The original ivory was broken and falling off everywhere. My grandma also came over one day and polished the wood. It's basically brand new but I love the sentimental value it has still. The bench was really wobbly and was in really bad shape so my dad fixed it and sanded the top down. I stained the wood again and painted/distressed the bottom. Matt can't stop playing it. I might even pick it back up! It's so pretty.

This little table I got at a garage sale for $5 a few years ago and I found it waiting for me in my dad's garage. It was in pretty bad shape but my dad made it sturdy and I gave it a little love and it turned out to be a perfect record player table. I made the handle on the drawer on the end with a piece of jute.

I got 2 of these chairs and another garage sale a few years ago for $5 as well. I painted them both differently and put one in our bedroom and the other in his room. I painted it in Sandune with leftover dining/kitchen paint.

His desk was his birthday present from me in 2011. His bday was like 2 weeks before our wedding so I gave him his very own man room in what was about to be our house. My parents gave him the chair and my grandparents gave him the bookshelf. I was very specific in what I was looking for at the time. I wanted a corner desk but I wanted it to protrude into the room, not fit into a corner. You can no idea how many corner desks aren't finished out on the back. This is the only one I could find and I got it at Office Depot.

I got the curtains for Christmas. They came online at West Elm. I loved the manly elegance of them.

I just found the rug at Garden Ridge on Summer Ave. It's an 8x10 and was $150. Not bad!

I love how his little room turned out. I may never get him out of there ;)

Who is Katie?

Hi! I'm Katie. I'm a follower of Christ, wife, mom, cake business owner, consignment sale owner and all-year Christmas elf. I'm obsessed with baking, cleaning, organizing, decorating, painting, redoing, and the list goes on. Here you'll always be able to see what kind of shenanigans I'm up to and join in on the fun as well. After all, without creativity I'd just be a lump of clay in my Potter's hands. I hope you enjoy!